O'HARA: This is an interview with John Robertson at his home in Paducah,

Kentucky, conducted by Adina O'Hara for the Community College OralHistory Project on May 23, 2007.

O'HARA: Mr. Robertson, Paducah Junior College, a municipal two-year

college, merged into the UK Community College System in July of 1968.What was your role in the operation of Paducah Junior College, which1:00became Paducah Community College, which now is West Kentucky Communityand Technical College?

ROBERTSON: WeKC-TechC. (laughs) I started out at the old college

downtown, Paducah Junior College, which as you said was a --tax-supported, and it started in 1932 during the midst of the Depression.And the idea was to provide two years of college-level work wherethey could get the equivalent of a $5,000 scholarship by living athome. So the school started out as a private school organized by Mr.Krueger and others, Govriel Rosenthal and local leaders. And they2:00needed tax support. When Robert Gordon Matheson came here, his jobwas to see to it that they receive tax support or they would have toclose the school. So they took it to the voters during the middleof the Depression, 25 percent of the workforce unemployed. And theyagreed, the city did, to tax themselves, and at the time the tuitionhere was higher than UK. So this school has always had a reputationof trying to provide excellence on a shoestring. And I came in --Iwas working --I came here as an official on the IC Railroad, and Ihad some graduate work at the time. And they were desperately lookingfor somebody to teach some history. And I agreed to teach a couple3:00of classes and enjoyed it so much that I gave up fifteen years ofseniority when an opportunity came, and I agreed to teach, because wehad a unique sense of purpose in Paducah Junior College. And so I wasthere as a faculty member, the tenth full-time faculty member, at atime the school was experiencing growth from the --well, actually fromthe G.I. Bill after World War II. So we had pretty well reached thelimits of the old plant downtown at 707 Broadway. And so the questioncame, should we think about moving to a new location? And that entailedanother campaign, which was to extend the tax base to include thecounty as well. And the county agreed to a tax, which is 50 cents ona $100 evaluation, while the city went from 25 cents to 50 cents. So4:00the county made a greater sacrifice to get into the private juniorcollege system that we had here with a tax base. So I started outthrough that and was on the self-study committee. And we had achievedfull accreditation at --with the Southern Association of Schools andColleges, while none of the community colleges of the University had.And so at our graduation one year, the president of UK came down, andsomebody said, "You better watch out or he'll take you over." And sureenough he said at the graduation that UK would be interested in lookingat the school. And so the process began with that. UK was reaching5:00out. We had sort of reached the limit of our ability to receive taxsupport. And we were in a new campus, and we had our accreditation.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: And we were a model for others to follow. So that's where we

were at. I was away on a --well, it was a Title III grant. I was goingto UK and working on my doctorate in history when all the actual mergertook place. So when the merger took place, I was still a PJC employee.The others were beginning to be UK. And by the way, the first timethat we had a payroll from UK, they didn't meet it. They were late,while Paducah Junior College, in all of its history, had never failedto pay its faculty, even during the midst of the Depression. So I6:00always started out with a bit of a bias. I was at UK, and of course,I was still a PJC employee. And then I was paid by the grant from thefederal government to go to school and I still received my PJC salary.All right, so I was up there for two years, and during that timethe merger began and Dr. Matheson had to retire because UK had theAdolph Rupp law. They made it mandatory to retire at 65. You couldteach part-time up to age 70, and that was to get rid of Rupp. Andso (laughs) what they had --Dr. Matheson was 66, so he had to stepdown at Paducah Junior College. And so he became a consultant to theUniversity of Kentucky to advise bringing all of them into the stage7:00where they would be able to succeed in their application for SouthernAssociation accreditation, which he did. And so he went around to allthe schools and went through what we had done previously and saw toit that they put together successful packages. And so UK CommunityColleges began to receive their accreditation. Well, so I came back,and Dr. Matheson had --of course, was out, and Don Clemens was thehead here at Paducah Community College. And I came back expecting anassignment as a history teacher. I was ready to start writing on mydissertation, and so I came back and he offered me the position of dean8:00of Paducah Junior College, which I accepted. It didn't exist--

O'HARA: It was a brand new position.

ROBERTSON: --we found out later. So I wound up being an associate

director of the Paducah Community College because they didn't havedeans. The deans were the deans of the community college system, andthere were two of them, Hartford and --oh, good heavens, Stanley Wall.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: So there was always some confusion, which I felt like I'd

sort of been betrayed on that. I came in accepting one position, whichdidn't exist, and then very early on I found out that I was supposedto be actually responsible for the oversight of a faculty. And so Istarted working with the understanding that my job was to help them do9:00their job. And then we got into UK, and I suddenly found that I hadno responsibility for the faculty but make the schedules. So I was alittle bit unhappy, to say the least, and so eventually I went back toteaching. But --so I'm a bit biased.

O'HARA: I can understand, yeah, in the changeover and the confusion.

Anyone would be.

ROBERTSON: And I could see the flaws and the foibles, but I've also

--was able to see that it was a --ultimately it was a mixed bag. Welost all we had worked for for years, making overtures to Murray,because immediately we began to have trouble with accreditationof ----------(??) classes, which were accredited by the SouthernAssociation, weren't. We actually lost our accreditation, and we hadto be reaccredited under the title of Paducah Community College. There10:00was only a partial self-study. But still it had to have been done, andso there was that loss. We lost some of that well-being that we hadestablished with Murray State. And --but in the long run, it probablywas good for the school, because it got into a more secure financialbase. We were unique in --along with Northern at the time in able tokeep our tax base. And so we used it for special programs, and that wasTitle VI, a lot of those. So one of the things I did here was to writegrants, and I always got more tax grants in than my salary, so I don'tapologize for that. But the period in that merger, there was always11:00some problems that had to be, but it opened up new avenues for us.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: And I think ultimately it was good for the school. And the

same way with this transition going on now. I actually supported theidea of setting up of the independent two-year college system outsidethe university, although the university has always been very kind inits treatment of me. For example, I'd already decided to retire andI hadn't told them, and so they offered to buy me out and I graciouslyaccepted it. But the merger was a traumatic period, and it was the12:00same time also we had the upheaval on the campuses in the '60s and allof that. So it was kind of a trial by fire, and the college emerged, Ithought, stronger. We had a strong athletic program, and we continued.In fact, the first year that we were a member of the community collegesystem, the college here won the national championship in basketball.

O'HARA: Really?

ROBERTSON: And I was at Lexington at the time, you know, studying and

still a PJC employee, and Kentucky got knocked out of the NCAA. It wasAdolph Rupp's last year. And so when we won the national championship,I called one of the television stations in Lexington and said, "Ijust wanted to report to you that --did you know that UK's integrated13:00basketball team just won the national championship?" They said,"What?" And I said, "Well, yes. It's at Paducah Community College. AtHutchinson, Kansas, we won the two-year college national championship."

O'HARA: That's amazing.

ROBERTSON: So it was kind of fun.

O'HARA: That is neat! Can you tell me a little history about the

basketball team here at Paducah Community College, its longevity? Andyou said integrated?

ROBERTSON: Well, that's something else that's not too much --I wrote

a thing on the history on PJC and found out, for example, that Dr.Matheson was oftentimes quite innovative. We actually had integratedintercollegiate athletics here with men and women on the same team.

O'HARA: Really?

ROBERTSON: And it was on the rifle team.

O'HARA: Oh, how neat!

ROBERTSON: And we had rifle competition. This was by telegraph.

14:00In other words, we would shoot here, they would shoot there, andthey would exchange scores by telegraph. And so --even so it wasintercollegiate competition.

O'HARA: Sure.

ROBERTSON: So you know, that's sometimes overlooked.

O'HARA: That's fascinating!

ROBERTSON: Well, the --we had strong baseball. Sonny Haws actually

was more interested in baseball than basketball. In fact, he triedout for the New York Yankees. And his roommate at the tryout camp wasMickey Mantle. And they offered both of them a chance to go on. Sonnyturned them down, because he had a chance to go to college and gethis master's, which he did. And he came back. And when we were PJC,Sonny had a rule that you are a student first and an athlete second.15:00And I'll always take my hat off to him for that. He held to it. Now,he is also a physical therapist. And so he was --teaching was sortof incidental. He did it because he liked it. And so when he washere, we had strong programs in both basketball and in baseball. Andalso we had golf competitions. And so that continued on, and we hada strong following as Paducah Community College because we'd just wonthe championship. And so Sonny stepped down, and they were looking fora new coach. And by that time, I was here, the head of the faculty,whatever title you want to have, and so I was recruiting a replacementfor Sonny Haws to coach basketball. And one of the applicants was Joe16:00Dan Gold, who had just finished tenure as the head coach of MississippiState University. And Joe Dan was from Benton, Kentucky, and wanted tocome back to this area.

O'HARA: Wow!

ROBERTSON: And so I --very smugly I wrote to Adolph Rupp and asked

him for a recommendation on the employment of Joe Dan Gold, which hegraciously gave. I liked Rupp. I met him a time or two. But thecollege was heavy into basketball. We had our own dormitory. Webrought in players from Chicago, you know, looked like we ought to goreally big-time.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: And then it just gradually, you know, went down. And now

they've started the basketball program back up again, but it's sort of17:00on an ad lib basis. But they're playing games and--

O'HARA: How recent?

ROBERTSON: Well, it started a couple of years ago.

O'HARA: Really?

ROBERTSON: And so it's back in operation again.

O'HARA: Is it intercollegiate or is it intramural?

ROBERTSON: I think it is sort of half and half right now. We were

intercollegiate, and we were a part of an organized group. Andof course, we went out and won at Kansas. Our traditional foe wasVincennes University.

O'HARA: Indiana.

ROBERTSON: And Vincennes is the only two-year university I know of.

O'HARA: Mm-mm. Yeah, university, (laughs) two-year university.

ROBERTSON: It is the university for the state of Indiana. It had the

land grant under the Morrill Act.

O'HARA: That's a unique situation.

ROBERTSON: So it's unique. But we played them, and they were our bitter

rivals. But that's all PJC. So I'm waffling and wandering.

O'HARA: Oh, no. You're doing great! I've got a lot of questions for

18:00you. Following up on the sports side of this, you said that thebasketball --and --sort of, you know, subsided. Was that soon afterthe merger with UK Community College System? Do you know what caused itto decline?

ROBERTSON: I think a lot of it was the television.

O'HARA: Could you explain?

ROBERTSON: Well, people don't support high school athletics or even

college athletics like they used to, when they can watch professionalsplay. And so that happened also with baseball. Paducah used to have aprofessional baseball team in the Kitty League. And the field is stillused by the Ohio Valley Conference. Murray State and all of them,Eastern, they play their baseball championships here at Brooks Stadiumin Paducah in the old Kitty League stadium. So I think a lot of it19:00had to do with the change in people's sports values. They shifted fromthe local participation, and there's not that intense sense of pridein their local schools that used to be. Just like Centre College, ofcourse, was a --still remembers the fact that they beat Harvard sixto nothing.

O'HARA: Oh, yes (laughs).

ROBERTSON: And that brought them international --so sports, in my

opinion, has shifted and it becomes entertainment.

O'HARA: Mm-mm, spectator.

ROBERTSON: And they prefer the better quality to the raw --you know,

not as experienced players that you find at the high school or juniorcollege --well, even college level now.20:00

O'HARA: It's --for me, I prefer the local, the amateur--

ROBERTSON: Oh, there's something about being there and participating.

It may be coming back.

O'HARA: I hope so.

ROBERTSON: Just recently, they're opening a new minor league baseball

team in this area, in Illinois, so there may be a movement back tolocal focus rather than national focus in entertainment sports.

O'HARA: Do you know what the reason is for the starting back up of the

basketball team here at West Kentucky Community and Tech?

ROBERTSON: Yes, it started as --one of the players on the national

championship team is teaching out here now.

O'HARA: Really?

ROBERTSON: And so that, I think, is the big influence. And so he's

--on a local basis --pick up and got enough interest, and they startedgetting some following, and it's beginning to grow. It's growing on21:00its own.

O'HARA: I'm going to have to follow this. This is fascinating.

ROBERTSON: Yes.

O'HARA: Fascinating. It would be interesting to see if it gets to

the stage again of recruiting. And I often wondered if UK --and it'salways sort of been a question that I've, you know, wondered about,if UK ever, with its community colleges, discouraged intramural sportsacross the system, but I'd never found evidence one way or another.

ROBERTSON: In fact, we played the freshman team at UK.

O'HARA: Really? Do you know the year?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, it was in '69.

O'HARA: In '69. So there was a lot of cooperation.

ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah! We played the other community colleges.

O'HARA: I interviewed Charles Shearer, who's the president of

Transylvania now. And he was at Henderson teaching, and they had abasketball team in the late '60s.

ROBERTSON: Yeah, inspired. Created their own, and we had a competition

with them, and we continue to have our competition with Vincennes andwith the other two-year schools all through --Rend Lake in Illinois,but we also had the --added in competition within the community collegesystem.

O'HARA: Do you recall any big tournaments or anything?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yes. We had them here for the -- well, it was about '69

or '70, I guess. I just had come back and was the (laughs) academicdean, except it wasn't a dean.

ROBERTSON: And why, I think it was part of a national thing, sort of a

--people began to glue themselves to the television.

O'HARA: Was it in all sports areas? You mentioned baseball. Like, was

there a decline in every area?

ROBERTSON: Yes, I think so.

O'HARA: Hm, it's a fascinating phenomenon.

ROBERTSO: Across the country.

O'HARA: Wow! Wow! And how long do you think the --you know, the --how

long of a period --when do you think basketball and baseball andeverything got established and really grew at Paducah Junior College?For a decade or longer?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yes. All through the --well, the coach at PJC went

on to be the coach at Memphis State, I believe, but --and then SonnyHaws came in and --Claude Haws. So there was a period there almost of24:00twenty years when it was big.

O'HARA: Wow! And what year did you start at Paducah Junior College? I

should have asked you that at the beginning.

ROBERTSON: Oh, good heavens! I don't remember.

O'HARA: Because you were talking about --it was after World War II, the

enrollment was increasing. And so I didn't know if it was the '50sor '60s.

ROBERTSON: Yeah, it was the late '50s. I'd have to --I'm fuzzy on dates

right now.

O'HARA: And you mentioned a UK president coming to visit, if I recall

correctly, at --back during that time period. Do you recall whothe UK president was at that time that came in and kind of said, youknow, "We're interested," because I followed the documentation in mydissertation, and I want to find out if it's who I think it is.

did not own any building here until they --they built one. But see,everything was done by funds raised locally. And later even, theCrounse Building was built by local funds.

O'HARA: By Paducah Junior College, Incorporated?

ROBERTSON: Well, yeah.

O'HARA: Is that the foundation now?

ROBERTSON: Mm-mm.

O'HARA: But at that time it was a--.

ROBERTSON: It was a board that still exists, and it still has control of

what to do with the tax money.

O'HARA: Interesting. So those are the types of decisions. When it was

Paducah Junior College, what was the role of the advisory board?

ROBERTSON: There was a UK advisory board, which was political, and they

did nothing and we ignored them. The PJC board controlled money, andthey met and they meant business and they were aggressively expandingland. Jack Rider(??) who was on the board, he was also a real estate27:00man, and he was responsible for expanding it all the way down to itspresent limits. And so they began to acquire --at one time we ownedWhitehaven, which is now the welcome center. And the college gave itto the state. And John Y. Brown, the governor, was wanting to build ashoebox welcome center. Instead, they restored that and made it into ahistorically significant welcome center.

O'HARA: Nice!

ROBERTSON: But --so the PJC board was active in their roles. People

like Leon Williams. And that's always been the case, going back toGov Rosenthal and the earlier --Sam Finkle, people who were interestedin the college, so much so they gave of their time and their money.28:00And so the people here in Paducah, with the help of McCracken County,basically built the school, and UK just was able to pluck it up. AndI think UK was wise in doing it. I think it was beneficial for theschool, but it was a period of some accommodation on both sides.

O'HARA: Mm-mm. And it was unique that --as --to have its own tax base

in addition to the UK funding made it unique.

ROBERTSON: Well, so did Northern, now.

O'HARA: Would you --yeah, I had not heard of this. Could you explain

the situation with Northern because--

ROBERTSON: Well, they, like us, had been a municipal-supported school.

They had local tax. And for a while, they were in the communitycollege system, and then they broke off and became a separate four-yearschool. We didn't.

had one president that tried that. He came up with the idea of a"communiversity." It would be a center where you could get everythingup to a PhD, which we had before UK left. You could get PhDs on ourcampus.

O'HARA: How?

ROBERTSON: In education. And we --by interactive television, so we had

people who went through the program. Dr. Veazey, so you know, wasinvolved in part of that, I believe, on her work.

O'HARA: On her work, interesting.

ROBERTSON: But under Len O'Hara, that was when the community got

together and built a building and persuaded UK to put in the collegeof engineering.

I know that it was the local --in fact it was George Crounse who--well, actually was heavily involved in that and almost funded it.So Paducah's always had that desire for good education, and they'rewilling to pay for it.

O'HARA: At all levels. Just let me know if you need a break. Mr.

Robertson, in 1933 Paducah Junior College offered the first terminalprogram leading to a two-year elementary teacher's certificate. Thisis what I found in some archival work. How has the role of --and Ishouldn't really use the word 'terminal,' but at that time I guess it31:00didn't transfer to a four-year degree --so technical program, how isthat --the role of technical programs changed at this institution overthe decades?

ROBERTSON: Well, it was incidental. It was the idea of Robert Gordon

Matheson, Dr. Matheson, that the college should meet local needs. Andamong the needs in their assessment, they found they needed to providea place where one could get training toward your terminal degrees, andanother one of these was the need for people at --we had a school inPaducah that had a history of providing such services called DraughonsBusiness College, private school.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: And the need was so great that they were not completely

32:00meeting --and so the college began to offer courses in commerce,typing, shorthand. And Howard Hill, one of the first students to everattend Paducah Junior College and also became a faculty member, one ofthe oldest long-serving faculty members, was hired to provide that sortof education, not going toward a four-year transfer, no matriculation,but to have a program that provided them with the skills to meet careergoals within the community. It would also benefit the community. Soin that sense we were always a true community college.

O'HARA: Yes.

ROBERTSON: And the same thing is true with our nursing program. We

started a two-year nursing program, primarily because Dr. Ed Robertson,no relation, was one of the first surgeons to come here, and he saw33:00a need. And so we began to set in place to train a two-year collegeprogram, because previously it had been a three-year program throughhospitals, or it had been a four-year program through Murray. And sowe put together this two-year package with Barbara Tescher and got itstarted. And when I came in, it was having some difficulty becausethey were frankly not doing very well on their state boards. And sothere was a new head of nursing, Laverne Brown, and she came in to talkwith me, and as the head of the faculty, the associate director, andwe decided to change the policy in the nursing program. Previously, if34:00you were accepted in the program, you went through and graduated. Wesaid, "You pass your courses or you're out." In the process, we had toget rid of one tenured faculty member who we had inherited from anothercommunity college. It was a nice person, but was not a good teacher.But anyhow, we set out to bring the thing up to providing qualitytwo-year terminal preparation. And the first year our students wentthrough under this new set of requirements, we scored the highest rateof success in the state of Kentucky on the board examinations.

O'HARA: Wow!

ROBERTSON: One hundred percent.

O'HARA: Just by making that change.

ROBERTSON: So the college has always had that tradition in the true

community college sense of trying to find what the community needs andmeeting those needs, be it a course in Shakespeare for a club group,35:00or be it a program that provides one with training in vocational --notvocational school, but --well, like in office work, nursing. And whatI was rather proud of, we started one -- we found out that there wereno physical therapy assistants. And the only place you could get thattraining was at Lexington. And so we started a two-year program herein physical therapy assistance, with Sonny Haws involved as a licensedphysical therapist. And we had some resistance from the physicaltherapy program in Lexington, said we couldn't do it, but we did.

O'HARA: (laughs)

ROBERTSON: Anyhow, that program met a specific need.

O'HARA: Yes.

ROBERTSON: Same thing was true, we started a two-year --when I was here

36:00we started a two-year program in dental assisting. And it became arotating program that went around all the community colleges. Whenthey finished preparing people in one area, like here, then it moved toanother one.

O'HARA: Interesting.

ROBERTSON: And supplied area needs. So that was what was the idea we

had. We felt that we had a responsibility of meeting the needs of thiscommunity, since they were supporting us with their --not only theirmoney, but sending their children to us. And we wanted to see to itthat they got as good an education as they could get and still live athome. And so that allowed people with less fiscal resources to achievea viable college education.

O'HARA: That's interesting. When you talked about rotating the program

for physical therapy assistant, do you mean that the instructors37:00here from Paducah one year would go to another school and a communitycollege or--

ROBERTSON: No, that was --the rotating was for dental.

O'HARA: Oh, I'm sorry, for dental.

ROBERTSON: No, the one --in the two-year here, we trained a group, got

them licensed, they filled the need for the local community, and thenthere was no more need for it, so we quit training.

O'HARA: Oh, for a while, I see. You just brought it in whenever the

need opened back up.

ROBERTSON: But when we got the other started, others had a similar need,

and so the equipment and that sort of thing could be moved around.

O'HARA: Interesting, interesting. West Kentucky Industrial College,

as we spoke of before the interview, it offered technical programs topostsecondary students from early in the nineteenth century.

ROBERTSON: Well, we'll have to back up a bit on that. West Kentucky

Industrial College was a two-year college.

O'HARA: Oh, okay.

ROBERTSON: And then in 1938, it became West Kentucky Technical School,

38:00which was a postsecondary vocational training school only. It did nothave any traditional college-level courses. They had all been moved toKentucky State. And so for example, black teachers had to go all theway to Frankfort to get certification.

O'HARA: And that occurred in 1938.

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

O'HARA: The transition to Frankfort--

ROBERTSON: Right.

O'HARA: --for the certification. At that point, did the --let's see if

I get the name right, West Kentucky Vocational School--

ROBERTSON: Ceased to exist.

O'HARA: It ceased to exist. What was started--

ROBERTSON: I mean, West Kentucky Vocational School was the school that

O'HARA: And so the vocational school, West Kentucky Vocational School,

was it built on the land that adjoined the Paducah Community College?

ROBERTSON: Well, originally it was located in the west end, and that

facility became antiquated and required quite a massive restoration.So the decision was made --we offered the land if they would builda new vocational school to serve Western Kentucky. And the collegeoffered them land, and that's where that merger came from. And theAnderson Building was named for Dr. Anderson, who was the founder ofthe original industrial college here in 1910.

O'HARA: And it served as postsecondary school when --at that location.

ROBERTSON: It was all postsecondary, but they offer --did begin to offer

40:00some college-level work as they went on. They had certificates, andthey had other --so they were in the process of moving toward whatbecame the merged institution.

O'HARA: And what year did they build out there, approximately? I'm

wondering how early the collaboration between Paducah Community Collegeand West Kentucky Vocational School began to develop.

ROBERTSON: Way on, when we were downtown, our faculty used to go out to

West Kentucky Vocational School and have lunch--

O'HARA: Really?

ROBERTSON: --when it was not fashionable to go to a black school if you

were white.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: They had a wonderful cooking school.

O'HARA: Hm.

ROBERTSON: And the tradition continued. So we had good relations with

them. In fact, a lot of their faculty would come over and take courses41:00with us for their accreditation.

O'HARA: And that was prior to the move.

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

O'HARA: Wow!

ROBERTSON: So going back that far.

O'HARA: Was that when it was still Paducah Junior College?

ROBERTSON: Yes, it was still Paducah Junior College.

O'HARA: Wow! So very early on there was--

ROBERTSON: So I think that's one thing that --even though we were a

trial case to end segregation, the lawsuit brought by the NAACP againstPaducah Junior College went all the way through the Sixth Court ofAppeals in federal court. And it was a test case that helped makethe University of Louisville decide to integrate and the University ofTexas. So we were involved in the end of segregation under the --well,Plessy v. Ferguson interpretation.42:00

O'HARA: Wow!

ROBERTSON: Separate but equal as acceptable.

O'HARA: It's interesting, the historical role that Paducah's played

in so many of these national movements and statewide movements.What was a significant moment you experienced as a faculty member,administrator, at Paducah Junior College --Community College? Whatbuildings did you primarily reside in? Do you have some fond memoriesof students and events?

ROBERTSON: Oh, you remember students, you remember faculty, you remember

moments. For example, one of the things I have always treasured, whenI first started teaching full-time in the early '60s, I had a night43:00class, U.S. history. And it was quite fashionable at that time forveterans to take classes. And at the Draughons Business College, theyjust signed up and got their money and never attended.

O'HARA: Hm.

ROBERTSON: Or at least that's what we thought, but not necessarily,

because I know people who insist that they did the work. But there wassort of that image, that you could get by with, you know, it's just atwo-year school, so we'll rip the government off a little bit. So Ihad this old long, lanky boy came in, taking a night class in history.And first test, I gave it back to him, his eyes opened, "Is thisright? I got an A." I said, "No, you earned an A." He had never gotten44:00an A in history in his life.

O'HARA: Really?

ROBERTSON: He was a Vietnam veteran, I believe. He came back. He was

taking it just --he got interested in it. He got a PhD in biology.

O'HARA: Oh, my goodness!

ROBERTSON: Now, you remember something like that.

O'HARA: Yes, because you --that's the type of moments I remember in my

life, when a teacher showed me that I am capable.

ROBERTSON: And you know, it was a good paper.

O'HARA: Neat. Wow!

ROBERTSON: So you remember things like that, and then you remember

people. At the old school we had (laughs) --this was downtown, it wassmall, it was crowded, we all knew each other, you know. And there wasone point where you stood there, you could see everybody in the schoolduring the daytime, right in front of Dr. Matheson's office. But wehad this faculty member who taught chemistry, who was the most feared45:00man on campus. A "C" with Charles Smith was an "A" [at] any othercollege in the university in the United States.

O'HARA: (laughs)

ROBERTSON: He wanted to be a doctor. He'd been injured in a motorcycle

accident. He had a withered arm, and he couldn't use one arm, but hegot to be interested in herpetology. In his doctoral dissertation,he was trying to synthesize the toxin in venom so he could kill cancercells. So he would go out to Murphy's Pond. And as PJC, we took ourstudents on field trips frequently.

O'HARA: Neat!

ROBERTSON: We had Nat Dortch, who was a geologist. And by the way, he

has a fossil named after him. He would take his students out, and theywould go to these spar mines in Southern Illinois and in LivingstonCounty and go down in the mines. He'd take them to rock quarries.46:00He'd walk them into the ground.

O'HARA: Wow!

ROBERTSON: Chuck Smith would take his students to Murphy's Pond,

which is a wildlife refuge, and they would catch water moccasins andrattlesnakes and bring them back.

O'HARA: Wow!

ROBERTSON: And Smith, one arm, remember, would come back with a six-foot

long rattlesnake.

[End of side 1, tape 1]

[Begin side 2, tape 1]

ROBERTSON: --the men's faculty restroom. I had to go down there one

time, and the light was off as, you know, we were dreadfully poor.47:00

O'HARA: You had to watch the electricity.

ROBERTSON: At that time, a bulb was out. We couldn't replace it. And I

started down these two steps to go into this men's restroom and I hearda slither.

O'HARA: You're braver than I am (laughs).

ROBERTSON: I stopped. One of Chuck's pets had gotten out.

O'HARA: Oh, no.

ROBERTSON: There was a copperhead down there on the steps.

O'HARA: Oh, no.

ROBERTSON: Well, you remember something like that.

O'HARA: (laughs) How did they catch it?

ROBERTSON: Why, he went down there and grabbed it and stuck it back in

ROBERTSON: And they were always looking for a crib course because they

had to study and they had to perform too.

O'HARA: Yeah, mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: So they wanted an easy four hours. Well, there was a new

course in the schedule, and they didn't know what it was. And they allgathered around the office down there. I got this from Dr. Matheson,and he was a dour Scot that never --you know, but he had a wicked senseof humor. And these basketball players were looking at the schedule.They said, "What is this new course, histology?" And with a perfectlystraight face, he said, "Well, that's history backward. Instead ofstarting way back and coming up, you start up and you go backward.""Hey, that's a good course. Four hours!" The whole team signed upfor it.

community college movement? Or was he just doing (laughs) what hethought was right?

ROBERTSON: Well, he studied with some of the tops in the two-year

college movement when he was at Peabody. He got his doctorate atPeabody. And so he had worked with Doak Campbell and others that werethe leaders in the two-year college movement.

O'HARA: So he was aware. Neat!

ROBERTSON: But he's often times overlooked, and I think his contribution

to the University of Kentucky was well received. He earned his money,and he saw to it that they got through a difficult procedure.

O'HARA: And he has a very lengthy tenure too, correct?

ROBERTSON: Yes.

O'HARA: With Paducah.

ROBERTSON: He came here --well, the college started in '32, and he came

52:00here in about '34, I guess it was, with the understanding that if hedidn't get a tax bill approved, that he would give it up. And by theway, the way they did that, they worded the question on the ballet,that if you voted no, it was a yes. And they went out and informed allthe people in the west end of Paducah who had the money, and they knewhow to vote (laughs). Then the people that had all the votes, theydidn't bother to tell them. So it worked very nicely.

O'HARA: Interesting. It's always interesting, voting time, huh? Yeah,

that's --that is. You were talking about --early on you were talkingabout the merger with the University of Kentucky and all the changes,53:00the pros and the cons. And what I'm wondering is, do you see anycomparison between 1968, that period of time and that consolidationwith the University of Kentucky, and the late '90s, early 21stcentury, where the new legislation went through with House Bill 1and postsecondary that merged the vocational school with the --I'mwondering if there is any historical cycles we're going through.

ROBERTSON: If you believe in that sort of thing, it may be the beginning

of a cycle. I don't really think that history necessarily travelsin cycles. It travels in a direction, and it may go in cycles aroundthat. So yes, I think there was a --the precedent was there becausethe university had colleges throughout the entire state and oftentimesassociated with those or near those were vocational schools. And they54:00began to actually cooperate some, which is unusual, Henderson and otherplaces, and built, you know, adjacent structures. And I think themovement was there and starting. And as I said, I was for it, althoughthe university treated me very well. I have no complaint there. Butit seemed to me that it was a logical thing to do, and you could alsoavoid this duplication that was going on, because they were beginningto offer programs that were competing with the community colleges. Andvocational schools are aggressively growing, and we were aggressivelygrowing, and duplication was inevitable. By combining them, you should55:00be able to avoid part of that and focus and make better use of yourresources.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: And as I wrote, I think, of something at the time that

someone asked my opinion on that, I thought that would be a logical wayof making better use of limited resources.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: Of course, I also taught economics for PCC and Murray State

University, so I did have a little background in that and thought thatefficiency would be better than competition.

OHARA: Yes.

ROBERTSON: That was inefficient.

O'HARA: Yes, definitely. And it appears at Paducah --in Paducah this

movement, I think, towards coordination began a lot earlier thanmost other places across the state. Of course, going back, the wholehistory of the college is so much earlier. But it's interesting.Barbara Veazey was telling me there was a lot of--56:00

ROBERTSON: We worked at it. We worked at it. We were trying to

cooperate --we offered Murray State free use of our facilities to bringtheir courses over here. That way our people in Paducah could getupper-level work.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: We cooperated.

O'HARA: And what about --what was that time period? How--

ROBERTSON: That was the '60s, '-7, '68.

O'HARA: Now, did they take advantage of that?

ROBERTSON: Oh, sure.

O'HARA: Okay. So Murray's been cooperating with you all for--

ROBERTSON: A long time. But in that period when we first started with

UK, they were backing off, and we'd lost all that rapport we had builtup. And the same thing is true with Clemens and I. We tried to restoreit and did, and got them to accept our courses and --well, and thenlater when O'Hara came in, for example, with his "communiversity," thatwas a stick in the eye for Murray because it got into their concept of57:00what their role was.

O'HARA: Oh, it gave them some competition, yeah.

ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah! And so they began to back off, and we lost some of

that cooperation that had been there. I think maybe that's coming backagain. So we find these little turf wars going on; that's inevitable.

O'HARA: I looked at the turf wars in the early 1960s for my dissertation

at the time that the legislation in 1962 was passed for a communitycollege system. And there was a lot of the regional colleges where oneof the other options that they were proposing was to cut up the stateinto five pieces and each regional college have their own communitycollege system. Was there talk in Paducah of aligning with Murray?

ROBERTSON: I think Dean Matheson was in favor of it.

O'HARA: But why didn't that occur? Was it mostly because of Bert Combs --

ROBERTSON: The board of trustees of Paducah Junior College; they wanted

O'HARA: Well, UK gave it the --definitely the prestige, the system, you

know, and the financial backing for struggling --especially with othercommunity colleges that--

ROBERTSON: Well, yes. And you think about it, the president of UK was

a former associate director at Maysville Community College, and thenhe became the director of Maysville. And Dr. Wethington, when he wasthere, the community colleges were treated on an equal basis with thecollege of medicine and you name it. We felt we were a part of theuniversity. I don't know that's true now. I mean, before the split.

O'HARA: Interesting. Why did it take Paducah so long to join the

59:00community college system, because the talks that I found and youmentioned, it might have been the late 50s is the first time, you know,that this idea of becoming a part of UK had been mentioned. And thenit wasn't until '68 that they actually joined.

ROBERTSON: Well, UK didn't know that anything existed west of

Louisville, I think.

O'HARA: (laughs)

ROBERTSON: Really, they're focused on the Bluegrass. And they were.

They were very parochial, and it took a shock to get them to thinkthat they were actually a statewide university.

O'HARA: And that they had a land-grant mission?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. Well, they've always had that and they did that very

well.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: Like the agricultural station at Princeton. But in --as

far as looking at the whole area as being their responsibility, they60:00focused more and more on the Bluegrass for a long time.

O'HARA: That's interesting. I didn't realize that because--

ROBERTSON: That's our perception.

O'HARA: Well, that's a good perception. I--

ROBERTSON: The people here in Paducah, when they wanted to go to a good

school, they would go to --they would either go to the University ofTennessee or they would go to Vanderbilt.

O'HARA: They're much closer.

ROBERTSON: Yeah, but not the University of Tennessee. That's Knoxville.

O'HARA: Yes. Yeah, that's a different caliber.

ROBERTSON: So --even so, it had a reputation for academics that UK

didn't. UK was a party school with a basketball team.

O'HARA: Mm-mm. Mm-mm. That's what's interesting. It's interesting

to get the perspectives from both sides, because other people in thestate have thought that UK's just trying to --was trying to stretch itspolitical arms with the community colleges, but to know that--

developing programs for community benefit. And so we had the firemarshal come in, who happened to be living in Paducah. And so we hada big meeting and found out the need was here. And then I came on, andI brought in the guy from Boston who was the head of the National FireProtection Association. And we had a meeting, and we began to bring in--we got people from far away as Cairo, Illinois, coming again to thesemeetings. And a need was there, and so we established a --that we hada need for a program, and we got a program and carried it through. Andwe had big, big objections from Louisville, because the fire chief in64:00Louisville was trying to do the same thing at the community collegein Louisville.

O'HARA: Really?

ROBERTSON: But we got it through.

O'HARA: But you're so far away, you know, you'd think they wouldn't be

so territorial. But that's interesting. What you just described wasfinding out what the need of the area was.

ROBERTSON: That's the policy of a community college. That's what we

always felt was our mission.

O'HARA: But your role as an associate director was much like what a dean

does. They identify need and then they pull it in and--

ROBERTSON: I was hired as--

O'HARA: A dean.

ROBERTSON: --a dean, and they didn't have deans in the community college

system. They only had two, and they were with the whole system. Andso the head of the college here was the director.

O'HARA: Mm-mm.

ROBERTSON: And he had the associate director. We had one -- that was me

-- and then we had assistant directors.

O'HARA: Oh, okay.

ROBERTSON: So there was a hierarchy but it was a --

O'HARA: But you functioned in that capacity. Interesting, yeah. It's

65:00interesting, they changed the names, but you essentially did the workof a dean for a college (laughs).

ROBERTSON: Well, I thought I was going to do that, and I was --well, I

was very unhappy in the position for a long time.

O'HARA: I can understand. I can understand why. Well, I --Paducah has

such a long and interesting history. I was just looking briefly atsome of the excerpts from my dissertation that I wrote. One thing,we are looking for people to interview for the Northern Kentuckycampus. And because it merged into Northern Kentucky College and thenUniversity; it's been harder for us to locate people to interview fromthe very early period.

ROBERTSON: Mm-mm.

O'HARA: Do you happen to have any leads?

ROBERTSON: Not now. All of them I knew are --when you think about it, I

fortunate to find you, and everyone highly recommended you. So I'mgoing to take a look at some of your books and little pieces andnuggets in there that you have. Well, is there anything else you wantto add about the history of this institution that has been--

ROBERTSON: I think this institution has always been unique. It had

a sense of purpose based upon community needs that drove it, more sothan, I think, other places, I may be wrong. But it also had a base.People in this town supported our efforts, reluctantly at times, butnevertheless there was always that core built around the board, if you67:00wish, these lifetime appointees, who had the pulse of the community,and that helped. Now the UK-appointed board, fluff. I don't thinkthey really did anything. They were maybe a part of that politicalbuddy system where they award them for helping, but I'm, again, verybiased on that. But they then merged in with and became the same asthe PJC board. So having that, a strong local-based group to help youdevelop policy, may be the key to why this thing did work here.